David Robbins - Miami Run

“Up yours!”

They reached the rim, the 13 forms in red fanning out. Arlo took Carmen by the right shoulder and led her toward the middle of the large clearing crowning the island.

Carmen gasped. “Please! No!”

“Be brave,” he advised.

The clearing was man-made, 20 yards in diameter, and bathed in the additional glow of a half-dozen braziers positioned at regular intervals around the edge. Flickering embers drifted skyward from the metal-receptacles. Flat, knee-high granite pedestals encircled a low marble slab situated in the center.

Carmen tensed and halted.

“There’s no resisting,” Arlo stated, pulling her toward the marble slab.

“This can’t be happening to me!” Carmen mumbled in a daze.

A pair of red-robed forms walked over to assist Arlo, one taking Carmen’s left arm, the other her right, and as Arlo stepped aside they dragged her to the slab.

“Please!” she whined. “I’m begging you!”

“Save you breath,” Arlo said, following them. “You’ll need it.”

Each of the figures in red was stepping onto one of the kneehigh, square granite pedestals. The pair holding Carmen stood her upright next to the slab, then turned and dutifully climbed onto their pedestals. Every pedestal was spaced a precise distance of seven feet from the marble. Only one was left unoccupied, the pedestal to Arlo’s rear. He stood to the right of Carmen, his hood facing the slab.

Carmen began to tremble. “Please, Arlo!”

“Stop it!” he barked. “You’ve sealed your fate! Now have the decency to meet it with dignity!”

“I could make a deal,” Carmen said hopefully.

“You have nothing to deal with,” Arlo assured her.

The wind was picking up and shaking the leaves on the willows and the other trees.

Carmen stared to the north. “How many do you think will come?” she asked with a tremor in her voice.

“I don’t know,” Arlo said.

“I hope Radnor isn’t one of them,” she commented. “He’s the worst of them.”

“You cannot judge the Masters by our standards,” Arlo stated. “They are as different from us as night and day.”

“Or mutants from humans,” Carmen noted.

“Mutants will be with us forever,” Arlo opined. “World War Three saw to that.”

“Maybe so,” Carmen said. “But how many humans serve mutant Masters? How many kiss mutant ass for a living?”

“You’re being petty,” Arlo remarked stiffly. “You were willing to serve the Masters while it suited your purposes.” He paused, his hood swiveling toward her. “I once thought you had a good head on your shoulders, but I see now that you can’t accept reality. You can’t accept the world as it really is. You still mistakenly believe humans are the dominant species.”

“We are,” Carmen said.

“Oh? Is that why you served the Masters for eleven years?”

“I wanted power,” Carmen admitted. “And the Masters reward those who serve them efficiently with ever-increasing power.”

“You attained a position of power,” Arlo said, “but you abused your trust. You failed to place your position in its proper perspective. You were a servant, Carmen. A Dealer, true, but still a servant. And that’s as it should be. Eventually, all humankind will serve mutant rulers.”

“You’re crazy,” Carmen mentioned.

“Am I?” Arlo rejoined. “Take a good look at our world. World War Three unleashed incalculable amounts of radiation on the environment.

The entire biological chain was affected. And radiation, old friend, inevitably causes mutations in living things. Scientists knew this. They experimented with deliberately producing mutant strains in their laboratories, both by genetic engineering and through controlled radiation exposure. One of the first mutants they created was a hairless cat—”

“A hairless cat?”

“That’s right. It cooed like a pigeon, wagged its tail just like a dog, and ate like a horse. Even its body temperature was higher than a normal feline. The scientists went on from there, of course, to develop many other mutations. And again, this was before the war.” Arlo stared at the moon.

“World War Three transformed the planet into a mutant breeding ground. Whereas prior to the war a mutation might occur naturally in a species every one hundred thousand generations or so, the radiation unleashed by the nuclear weapons caused mutations in every species immediately after the war. Think of it! Every species was drastically affected simultaneously! And the mutations have been appearing ever since.”

“One day the humans will wipe the mutants out,” Carmen said.

“Never happen,” Arlo said, disagreeing. “There are too many mutants now. Both the wild ones—the two-headed bears and the six-legged alligators and the like— and the mutants stemming from human ancestry will be with us always.”

“Were the Masters human once?”

“No,” Arlo replied. “But ninety-four years ago the first Master was born to human parents. The parents must have consumed tainted radioactive substances, and the result was the formation of an embryo unlike any other ever known.” He chuckled.

“You sound like you’re happy about it.”

“I owe everything I am to the Masters,” Arlo said. “The birth of the first one was a monumental occasion.”

Carmen scrutinized the trees lining the north side of the clearing and shuddered. “Where did the other six come from?”

“The first Master’s human parents gave birth to a daughter a year later,” Arlo detailed.

“Jarita?”

Arlo nodded. “Jarita. She and Orm mated.”

“Orm was the firstborn?”

“Yes.”

“Somehow I received the impression Radnor was the oldest,” Carmen commented. She was feeling grateful for the conversation. Anything was better than contemplating her inpending fate.

“Radnor is the oldest son,” Arlo explained. “Then came Dimitri, Sapphira, Quartus, and Marva.”

“I never knew,” Carmen said. “It’s impossible to guess their age by their appearance.” She glanced at Arlo. “You seem to know everything about them.”

“Orm trusts me,” Arlo stated proudly. “Physically, they’re different from us. But they have the same emotional needs. They can be our friends.”

Carmen snorted. “Now who’s not facing reality?”

“You simply don’t understand them,” Arlo said. “You never did. Look at what they’ve accomplished. A handful of mutants have subjugated the southern third of what was once the state of Florida. Seven mutants rule a hundred thousand humans! Amazing!”

“Why are there only seven? Why didn’t they breed more?”

“They tried,” Arlo answered. “But that’s the trouble with mutations, especially those created by excessive radiation. The mutants have difficulty procreating. Most of their offspring are stillborn. Even when they do give birth, the infants might be deformed or mutated more than the parents. Orm and Jarita were able to have five children. That was all. And Radnor and the others have been unable to continue the line. Orm once considered the idea of mating with humans, but they decided against it.”

“Thank God,” Carmen remarked.

Arlo straightened. “They will be coming soon.”

Carmen pursed her lips. “Why did Orm’s parents let him live? If I had a child like him, I’d drown it.”

“You would,” Arlo said testily. “Fortunately, Orm’s human parents couldn’t bring themselves to slay him. He must have been an adorable baby.”

“Adorable!” Carmen declared, then laughed. “You’re worse than crazy!

You’re really sick in the head! How can you call something like him adorable?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”